Pentagon still juking the stats

Former CNN head Eason Jordan says that the Pentagon is still underreporting the number of attacks in Iraq.

Published December 19, 2006 6:25PM (EST)

Yesterday, we speculated that perhaps even the new Pentagon report showing the number of attacks in Iraq at an all-time high shouldn't be trusted, because of the Iraq Study Group's revelation that the Pentagon had been drastically underreporting the number of attacks in Iraq.

At his new Iraqslogger blog, Eason Jordan has confirmed our suspicions, noting that despite the ISG's recommendations on how better to quantify attacks, this latest Pentagon report still leaves out much of the violence in the country, including any sectarian violence of indeterminate origin. As we noted yesterday, the underreporting is not a question of one or two attacks -- the ISG found, on one single day, a discrepancy of some 1,007 attacks between official Pentagon numbers and reality. (The Pentagon had reported 93 attacks; the real number was 1,100.)

Being able to say "we told you so" on this one is distinctly depressing.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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Iraq Middle East Pentagon War Room